Course makim, One year in Israel, and Gilat Shalit!!

So....I guess keeping this up was harder than I expected. But after a couple months, I am finally done course makim (the commander’s course)!!

Overall, the course was definitely a learning experience. It definitely attains the goal of preparing each of us to be a squad commander in wartime.  The problem with the course is that while you certainly learn a lot about being a commander professionally (lots of training exercises in the field), you are not necessarily taught how to be a commander on a day to day basis. By that I mean that in a couple weeks time, I could be put in charge of 10-15 new recruits and be responsible for each one of them every second of the day, and it definitely won’t be easy, at least at first. One thing that I have definitely learned over the course, as well as throughout my training, is what NOT to do as a commander. At the same time, I definitely feel like I have acquired the tools needed to succeed as a commander, and I know that once I start my job, wherever it will be, it will come to me naturally.

One of the best parts about the course is that now that we’ve shown we’re mature enough to be commanders, we’re given much more independence. Every morning, we're told the entire day's schedule. Don’t forget that it’s still the army, so it’s a schedule with the fine print of ‘subject to change a million times a day’. Nonetheless, it’s still a pretty good outline of the day and definitely an improvement over the previous 8 months of training where we had to report to someone every couple minutes. The general approach is very good - we're not given limited times to do everything. When there’s dead time, which happens very often everywhere in the army, we aren't given completely unnecessary tasks to do (not all the time at least), like we were previously. As a result, I've probably read more books in the last month than I have in the past year, which is a good thing.

Part of the training included weeks in the field training in different types of terrain including open field (shetach patuach), overgrown, bushy terrain, built up, urban areas, and more. During the open field week, I was the negevist. It was my first time experiencing the full brunt of this weapon and its accessories, the whole 30 kg of it, carried with you sometimes for exercises lasting up to 3 hours at a time, but it was definitely an experience. Although hard to imagine, you get used to the weight pretty quickly. The hard thing is getting used to the night vision you use, which covers only one eye. As a result, you lose your sense of depth and have to 'check how soft the ground is' so to speak, quite a few times before you can move about properly. People must have gotten a good laugh out of watching me when I first started walking. I probably looked no better than a drunk stumbling along the street late at night. But once you do adapt to it and learn how to walk properly with it on, nothing beats being able to see EVERYTHING going on around you while it is pitch black outside and your friends see nothing.

Our time exercising in wild, thick, and bushy terrain (סבך) was definitely one of the most difficult things I've done. One drill, in particular, will never be forgotten. In short, while the actual exercise only lasted about 30 minutes, getting there was a 3 hour process to cover just 3 kilometers. The reason: we were walking through unkempt, dense terrain. And when I say dense, I mean walking through bushes taller than me, shrubbery so thick that you get caught in so many branches that you can’t get out, even going back the direction you came from. Even worse, you can’t exactly pull the branches out of the way because they are covered in sharp thorns that get caught in your gear, not to mention poke you everywhere. I was leading the way for our group, ahead of our commander because I was with the negev. At some points I would simply get to areas where it was like a wall of bushes in front of you. I would turn around to my commander asking him where to go and he would look at me strangely as if the answer was clear, telling me to keep going straight through. Several times my commander, who was walking right behind me, had to take his gun and start hacking at the branches in order to get me out of the branches that were preventing me from advancing. It definitely taught me a thing or two about perseverance, army style.

Our training in urban terrain was definitely among the more useful things we learned during the course. Unfortunately, due to interruptions in our earlier training, our exposure to urban terrain was cut short so this definitely filled in the gaps. Starting from scratch, we progressed from taking a room in pairs to taking houses, to taking entire areas of a city. It really was amazing seeing so many people working side by side to conquer such relatively small areas. The highlight of the week for me was definitely participating in a complex exercise that seemed to me like a very high tech game of laser quest. It consisted of many hummers driving around, each one meant to simulate an entire division of troops for both sides of the battle. Each hummer was supplied with the equivalent of those vests you get at laser quest, and also a weapons system which you had to use to ‘shoot’ at the enemy. As soon as your hummer is hit, you are down. After the whole exercise is done, which takes a long time because it includes the whole ‘trip’ to the enemy and back to ‘friendly’ territory, the whole thing is analyzed to learn new strategies. While I did learn a lot from it, I was a simple pawn for the day, helping out with directing the hummer that I was in. I had a lot of fun being in the hummer driving up and down very large sand dunes, me being responsible for steering the driver in the right direction so that she doesn’t hit any large boulders and stuff. It also made for some cool pictures! 

The course was also filled lots of running and personal fitness exercises. Seeing as how I could be responsible for whipping new recruits into shape within a month, it would be pretty pathetic if I can’t keep up with them on a simple run. We progressed from running just 2 kilometers at the beginning of the course to a final run of 10 kilometers. As I have learned very well over the past year in the army, despite how often they tell you that the exercise is gradual and you will work up to it, somehow things always get complicated along the way. Sometimes we would run 3-4 times a week, and sometimes once in 2 weeks. But somehow, everyone managed to complete the 10 kilometer run at the end of the course, and it was great! We have also continued to run the obstacle course that we used to do in basic training, just with a small catch. It is now combined with a simple shooting test at the end, after you’re breathing very, very heavily. So in order to pass it, you have to hit at least 4 out of 6 bullets on target at the 50 meter mark. Luckily for me, I really did put effort into the runs that we were doing throughout the course, so the actual running of the obstacle course didn’t pose a problem. I improved from the 9 minutes 40 seconds I was doing in basic training to as low as 8 and a half minutes for the whole obstacle course. The catch is that one of the reasons I improved so much was that I ended up doing it 6 times throughout the course. Each time I would run it well, and then get to the shooting range and simply not be able to hit the target. I kept telling my commanders that it was because my gun wasn’t calibrated (meaning where I was aiming was not actually where the bullets were hitting) but they said to keep trying. Finally after doing the entire exercise 5 times over the course of the past 2 months, we were given a chance towards the end of the course to calibrate our guns. After doing that, I got through the obstacle course and hit 6 for 6 at the shooting range. Of course, nobody listened to me that my gun wasn’t calibrated but that didn’t matter now. Looking at the bright side, at least I will never have trouble getting over the wall or climbing up the rope...

Amidst all my ‘fun in the army’, I almost didn’t realize that I have passed the 1 year mark of being in Israel (since August 3^rd), and have almost completed one year in the army. Reflecting on this past year and comparing where I was before to where I was now, I have no regrets. The last year in the army and in Israel has been filled with so many challenges and new experiences that I could have never expected. When I first started the army, we would be given a task (like walking 80 km) or hear a ridiculous rumour about something you do in your army service and just think it’s not possible. Now, no matter what we’re told, the approach is just ‘okay, that’s hard, but I’ve been through worse, you just gotta do it’. You get to a point in your service when the tasks you are given, while very difficult and maybe even sometimes physically painful, just don’t seem that bad, no matter how hard it may actually be. Once during basic training when we were given a task to do and we said that it just wasn’t possible, my officer yelled at us saying that everyone just has to imagine they have a big ‘S’ on their chest, like superman, and that they can do anything. While it did sound corny at the time, I think I have gotten to that point, and whatever needs to be done will be completed. Over the past year, I have met so many amazing people who go through so much and make such large sacrifices to do what they do, that it really makes you appreciate what you have in life.

Which brings me to this week, and the most amazing thing that happened on Tuesday – Gilad Shalit returning home!!! I’m not sure what the media coverage abroad was like, but all I can say is that I am happy that I was in Israel for it. Over several consecutive hours of watching the news, nothing else was mentioned besides the events surrounding his release. Seeing the pictures of him landing in Israel, meeting Bibi Netanyahu and finally being reunited with his family were so heart-warming. While I do understand the ramifications freeing 1000 terrorists does have for Israel, both for those directly affected by them in the past and also the consequences for the future, I think Israel did make the right choice. From my standpoint, nothing can beat the feeling that an Israeli citizen, especially a combat soldier, feels, knowing that Israel will do anything to bring it’s people home and leave no one behind. For those of you who missed all the coverage, there are many videos posted on youtube of the entire thing. I also encourage you to read this opinion piece, which I think had an interesting angle. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4136659,00.html

As for me, I am happy to be finished my course and excited to start a new chapter in my army service. Early this week I will hopefully get a final answer on what tafkid (job) I will have for the next couple months – whether I will be a commander for new recruits just starting basic training, or a commander of soldiers who have already completed their ~8 months of training. Equally as important, I will hopefully be finalizing plans to fly back to Toronto for a visit and I expect to be back this week! So stay tuned to facebook for that!

Shavua Milchama (War week), Masa Kumpta (Beret March), Special vacation, a taste of Imun, and the Commanders Course!

Since my last entry, a lot of things have changed. Now that I have finished war week and my beret march, I am a considered a combat soldier for all purposes, on the same level as any other soldier (unless you ask those who have been serving for 2 or 2.5 years already who will say otherwise just to make themselves feel better having a year more experience but being no more qualified). I now get less condescending looks when traveling on public transit because the red beret shows that I have at least finished my 7 month period of training. In that sense, within the army hierarchy, I guess I have moved up from the 'basar tari' stage (fresh meat) to the 'tzair' stage (young) on the scale of service time in the army, which still doesn't say much.

The anticipation leading up to war week was unbearable. Many times when asked about the hardest period of their training, soldiers will often say war week. For paratroopers, it is a full week (7 days from Monday to Monday) of non-stop hard work, except of course for a break for Shabbat. Impressions of the week often include things along the lines of ‘the hardest thing you will do in your service’, or ‘I hope you’re ready for the ass-whooping of a lifetime’, or even comments such as ‘you will be torn a new asshole’. So as you can see, you can’t really blame me for being so nervous for the week to start. However, my overall impression of the week was that it really wasn’t so bad, except that may just be in hindsight. The week included many platoon wide exercises, which combined the work of not just our infantry unit but also helicopters and tanks. In general, we spent most of the night doing exercises, and for anywhere from 3 to 6 hours during the day we would get time to sleep under a hastily made shade area because it was simply too hot to continue. Of course, sleeping outside in 35 degree weather whether in the shade or sun is difficult in itself, but you learn to take advantage of it after being awake the entire night. In between exercises, we would have marches of anywhere from 2-10 km, in full gear of course. To simulate wartime, where people often carry tons of extra weight, everyone was weighed fairly accurately so that they were carrying an additional 40% of their body weight on them, which for me was around 32 kg (or 70 pounds) of weight on me for most of the week, including those walks in between exercises.

Ironically, one of the toughest parts of the week, for me at least, was simply eating. After 7 days straight (minus Shabbat where we got smoked turkey/salami) of eating 3 meals a day that essentially consist of tuna sandwiches, it got pretty hard to bear the taste and smell of tuna. But as is most effectively taught in the army, you just learn to accept it, deal with it, and move on. The week finished late morning on the 7^th day, with a seemingly never ending stretcher march of around 10 km back to base. Of course, around halfway through the march, when everyone starts to get excited because the area around you begins to look familiar, we take a small detour and come to a stop, where we are explained the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘baltam’ ( (בלתם, short for ‘bilti metuchnan’ (בלתי מתוכנן), meaning unplanned, or unexpected. As I have learned the hard way for the past 8 months in the army, כל תכנית בצבא זה בסיס לשינוי. Every plan in the army is a basis for change. And so, we were told that instead of continuing to the base, we would continue walking a different direction to where we had to complete one more platoon wide exercise (which take on average 2 hours). Hearing this was mentally crushing, especially after the sense of euphoria from finishing such a gruelling week started to kick in. Looking around I could tell that everyone was done mentally. But of course, as is the case with everything, there was no choice but to keep going. Thankfully, it was just meant as a psychological challenge, and after a 5 minute detour we began to hear music playing at a distance, and realized the end was near. Showering, and even just being able to sit down with nothing on your back never felt so good!

A week later we had our masa kumta, or 80 km march for our red berets. This is the most anticipated part of our training, with the red beret being THE symbol of Tzanchanim. This march went by fairly smoothly, being more of a routine than anything else, consisting of around an hour of hard work, and then about 10 minutes to down a 750 ml water canteen and eat a small snack before the next hour of walking. The atmosphere throughout was very exciting, knowing that only (yes only) 17 hours later there would be tons of people on the streets (family and friends) cheering us on to the finish. I was particularly excited because my dad and sister would be coming for the ceremony following the march. We were told that parents/friends could meet us close to the finish, which would be at Ammunition Hill, the site of one of the most significant battles of the Six Day War in 1967. After being awake for over 30 hours and walking for around 17 of those, you really aren’t aware that this point of the march is near. So I was pleasantly surprised when in the middle of nowhere, around 5 km from the finish, I see my dad, sister and uncle, smiling and waving me over to the side. I quickly run over to them, give them a probably very sweaty hug, say hi and bye, and then have to run back to the line to continue the march. It definitely lifted my spirits and helped give me a final push to the finish. Finally, we reached the point around 2 km away from the finish, where we would open the stretchers and make our way to ammunition hill. It was very overwhelming during those last 2 km. The streets were filled with people holding big signs saying things like כל הכבוד or מזל טוב, and of course lots of cameras. All the excitement almost made me forget to process the fact that I had just walked almost 80 km. It was all a blur by that point.

After finishing the march, we were given a short time to celebrate and eat with all the family and friends that brought food with them in true Israeli, over the top fashion. We then had time to shower at facilities nearby and quickly had to come back for a rehearsal of the ceremony to come. People were in such rough shape that not only was it very hard to stand through a full run through of the ceremony, but some people sort of fell asleep in the shower and almost fell over because of how tired they were. Thankfully, even though my entire unit had to continue on to our new base (of course, in true 890 style, closing another 21 days on base, even directly after the masa kumta), I got a long weekend off to spend with my family. I went with my family to the Dead Sea the following day to 'heal my wounds' so to speak, but pretty much just for some desperately needed rest and relaxation. Definitely highly recommended for the day after walking 80 km, if anyone out there is planning on it in the near future.

So after enjoying tons of food and spending some quality time with my dad and sister, I went to our new base for the last week of 'refresher' training of all of tzanchanim. Little did I know that I was in for a pretty nice surprise that would get me the weekend off! So there has been a lot of build-up to the end of our advanced training, because at the end the best or 'most qualified' soldiers get sent to the commander's course, considered the 'early offer' of the commander's course. I really didn't know what to expect because on the one hand, my squad specialty was mefaked hulia (like a mini commander) and it is known that almost each offer for the early commander course goes to someone who got this specialty. On the other hand, I hadn't had such good feedback from my commander about my performance as a soldier recently, and in general, it is pretty rare for lone soldiers to go to the commander's course, let alone be offered it in the early offers. The day of our beret march, I notice my commander and officer talking quietly and smiling at me, just as they signal for me to come over. My conversation with them went something like this:

My officer: Oren, you're serving for two years right?

Me: Yes.

My officer: Only if you don't become an officer though?

Me: Yeah that's right (at this point he starts to smile suspiciously).

My commander: And after your service you were planning on going back to school?

Me: Yea...

My commander: Unless you decide to take a year or two off of your studies for some reason.

Me: (finally realizing that he's hinting at me signing more time to become an officer) If I happen to sign more time in the army and delay my studies, you and I will both have my mom to answer to.

It was all a very awkward and funny conversation, mainly because my commander is 20, and I'm 3 years older than him. Although these commanders are very great people, and are obviously responsible enough to take the lives of 10 other soldiers under their wings, I still picture them as children who only 1 year ago finished high school, having lived at home their entire life and not experienced anything else between high school and the army. They also don't seem to understand that coming to the army for 2 years instead of continuing to dental school was a big deal for me, and if I were to sign an extra 2 years to become an officer, I'd finish my service around the same time that I could have finished dental school in the first place.

After all of this, I ended up being offered to go to the commander's course. Even though I made it clear that as of now I'm not interested in the position they wanted me for (which would have me go to the officer's course directly after the commander's course and sign another 2 years of service), I don't think the debate is over just yet... but for now I'm starting the commander's course in about a week, with the hopes of being a commander of Tironut (basic training) upon completing the course.

I've just finished 3 weeks of the preparation for the commander's course. The first week involved essentially going back to school, learning in a classroom for over 12 hours a day about things like the theory behind our guns and shooting, movement in the field, first aid, protection from chemical attacks, etc. It was surprisingly a very demanding week. Every day of the week started off with an hour and a half of exercise including a 5-6 km run with a varied pace and a strength workout. They even managed to squeeze in the obstacle course which we did a couple months back during basic training.  The most demanding part of the week was just having to sit through all those classes because there really wasn't a lot of material, it was just taught at such a slow pace, although not everyone seemed to agree on that. This was probably the first time that the fact that I have studied 4 years towards a bachelor's degree has helped me with something in the army. The second week of the preparation was spent learning about navigations. Naturally, the exercise immediately on wake up was continued, and following that we spent a couple hours in the classroom examining maps and planning the route we were going to take. The route usually involved 2 checkpoints, in addition to a start and finish point. You have to memorize the route, getting from the start to A to B to the finish only with a compass to help you and no use of a map. It is definitely a challenge the first couple times, but eventually you get the hang of it, especially when you find yourself lost in the middle of a forest at night time with only 10 minutes to go before you have to be at the finish. Of course, I can't complain because the navigations I do are child's play compared to what the sayarot (elite units) do. Some have more than 2 months of their training dedicated to navigations, including navigations of more than 30 km at a time, while we had to do a mere 6 km. The best part of the prep course was the third week, regila (a week off), which I have just finished.

I am now about to start the course in a couple days, which will take me to somewhere around mid October. The course complicates things in terms of my vacation home, which I was planning on taking at the end of August (every lone soldier is supposed to get 30 days to fly home every year of their service), but I'm hoping to get at least 2 weeks after the course finishes to fly home. I can only hope for the best, and of course bug them as often as I can in order to get it, as is the case with almost any of your so called 'rights' in the army. Here's for hoping!

Passover in Israel, Lots of Masaot, Avtashim, Yom Ha’atzmaut, and training in the Golan

Things have picked up somewhat since finishing basic training. I am now essentially done advanced training, with only 80 km standing between me and my red beret!

While many of you may think that Passover is awesome in Israel, because it is everywhere and that means food possibilities are much more varied, it may be true for most people, but definitely not for a soldier in the army. The week before Passover was spent in the field, very similar to our previous weeks in the field, only having advanced to exercises involving our whole squad (group of ~10 people). Towards the end of the week, we had a masa (march) of 22+5 km with the stretchers. Overall it was decent, except that after a week of eating tuna, corn, canned fruit, and beans, you get somewhat bored with the food and sort of lose your appetite. Normally, the masa would be okay because we have to have a hot meal before doing it, except seeing as how Passover began the next week, our base was already kosher for Passover so food options were somewhat limited. I ended up eating maybe 3 matzahs with some chocolate spread and cheese and an orange, and that lasted me for the next 27 km, although by the end I was SO HUNGRY! In short, Passover in the army sucks. The food consists of all you can eat matzah and mashed potatoes (which with a little bit of an exaggeration glows a fluorescent yellow from all the oil). Also because the dishwasher isn’t kosher for Passover, all the dishes are washed by hand so they are extra dirty.

The one plus about Passover in Israel is that there really are tons of snacks to buy. Everything is kosher for Passover, even many of the cereals and chocolate bars that are made year round are made kosher and taste pretty good. On my way back to base one day, I went into the grocery store just to buy a couple bags of bamba. When I got to the cash register, the woman in front of me saw that I was in uniform and let me cut in front of her. I handed the cashier the money for my purchase, and then that same woman grabs the money from the cashier, hands it back to me, and tells me that she’s paying for it and to go get a couple more bags. I was a bit taken aback, so just took the bags I had there, told her thank you probably a few times too many, smiled, and left the store. I felt very grateful.

Overall, advanced training is awesome compared to basic training, even though it is קריעת תחת (expression literally meaning splitting open the ass, but really just means something very hard), we are generally treated better. Instead of getting 2 seconds to do each thing, we have to complete several tasks by a certain time which is longer than we would previously be given. As is very characteristic of the Israeli army, even though the entire schedule for advanced training was set out in advance, week by week, the schedule seemed to change almost every week. We ended up doing a 35 + 5 km masa, and then the next day, we were sent to guard settlements throughout the west bank. This 40 km was the toughest yet, because for some reason I got huge blisters on my feet after the first 10 km, and pretty much had to limp the rest of the way. The biggest of them was the size of my entire heel. Anyhow, so the day after we finished that, without giving my feet time to heal, we were sent to guard a very small settlement of around 300 people. The main problem was that guarding this settlement involved doing patrols by foot for hours at a time, with me still having to limp because of the blisters I had, not to mention the almost daily runs that we were required to do as well in order to stay in shape. Overall, it was a good week because instead of being active for 17 hours a day, even when there is nothing to do (as is normally the case), we had a total of 10 hours of guard duty each day, and the rest of the time free. Meals were in our hands, so we weren’t limited to the same food on base and could actually cook what we wanted to eat. The bad thing is that things like fries or falafel don’t turn out very well when made using only a small hot plate which doesn’t get very hot. It was a very different experience sitting down to eat side by side with my commander, talking to him like an equal, at least almost equal, still being unable to ask him personal questions (which I discovered pretty quickly). In only a couple weeks time we will be breaking distance with him, at which point I will be able to treat him just like a friend.

One of the things I have really been looking forward to is experiencing Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut in Israel, especially as a soldier. Unfortunately, we were required to spend the holiday on base, but at least there would be some comfort in the fact that we must have some kind of elaborate assembly or ceremony. Or so I thought. My expectations of a motivational, very important 2 days were quickly crushed. They ended up being a very normal 2 days. The night of Yom Hazikaron we had a quick 20 minute ceremony and that was it. We then proceeded to spend the entire night awake, having to work on all our gear and equipment to make it function and look better/more professional. Finally, by the late hours of the morning (around 10ish), it was inspected by a high ranked commander (a falafel, as we call them because the rank of 1 ‘star’ that they have on their shoulder kind of looks like a falafel). This was followed by a very simple 10 minute raising of the flag ceremony to mark the transition from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha’atzmaut, which from stories I’ve heard is meant to be very exciting, and obviously wasn’t. We then had a couple more hours to improve our gear with the suggestions/criticisms we got from the officer, although not effective because everyone was falling asleep in any position possible. Finally we were given time off until the next day in honour of Yom Ha’atzmaut. I thought it was kind of pathetic that my Jewish high school abroad puts on a more comprehensive ceremony for Yom Hazikaron/Yom Ha’atzmaut than the Israeli army itself, but what can you do. Interesting to note that even though everyone complained about it to each other, it was only the Druz soldier serving with us who actually brought it up to the commanders and ended up getting into a yelling match with them about how pathetic the day was. Obviously, the only response they could come up with was the too well known אין מה לעשות – nothing you can do about it. I’m sure it would have been better had I not been stuck on base, but it would’ve been nice to really experience this special day.

The end of Yom Ha’atzmaut was marked with something all soldiers could dream of... NOT! A 50 + 5 km masa, the last one in preparation for our 80 km masa for our red berets, which everyone keeps talking about. This masa was much better than the last, having learned my lesson and having used 2 pairs of socks this time. I still ended up getting some blisters, but they were very minor and didn’t really bother me, except the small one that formed on top of the previous one which had yet to fully heal.

The following week was spent helping a different paratroopers battalion with their ‘refresher’ training, so to speak. We did several exercises throughout the week, pretending to be enemies and ambushing these battalions, which sounds much cooler than it actually was. One night, they actually ended up completely missing us, and we got lost walking back to the meeting point, having to walk almost 2 hours, rounding it off with a 100 meter trek through deep mud and even a series of barbed wire fences, which were only discovered after the first person in line walked right into them. For some reason, even though we were staying on an army base all this time, they were not ready for us and didn’t have enough food, so we were required to eat manot krav (military rations out of cans). Eating the same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner takes its toll, and I guess it was the Israeli inside of me that made me suggest to my friends that we sneak over to the kitchen and ‘borrow’ some cheese, chocolate milk, and puddings for breakfast, which was a huge success. We got so sick of the food that one night during our free time we even ordered a couple pizzas to the gate of the base and devoured them on the spot, each one of us finishing half a pizza in about 5 minutes. It definitely rates among the best tasting pizzas I’ve had here.

I ended up getting out that weekend while the rest of the platoon closed Shabbat on base because my brother was in Israel leading a birthright trip. As I have noticed many times already, any right that the army sets out for soldiers, especially for lone soldiers, is subject to change without notice. Every time an immediate family member comes to visit, a lone soldier is supposed to get extra time off to see them. I was supposed to stay on base for this weekend and close the next one. They thought that they were granting me this right by letting me out this first weekend and closing the next, essentially just switching the weekends when I wanted both off to spend with my brother. Thankfully though, by the time I got to the next weekend, they forgot all about it so I got off for that one too!

Seeing my brother after not seeing him for over 10 months was awesome, and almost just as great was the huge bag of goodies from home that he brought with him. It was very moving to hear about the whole group’s experiences in Israel, especially their thoughts about their day at Yad Vashem and Har Hertzl which were very motivating and definitely inspired me to give my all during these last few weeks of training.

A while ago, it was parent’s day on base for the newest draft (the March draft). As part of it, they put on a demonstration including a sniper exercise, and a demonstration of how a group of soldiers take over a hillside. Luckily for us, my squad was chosen to participate. Even better was that it was meant as more of a show rather than an accurate depiction of the exercise, so we were instructed to use as much ammunition as needed to give a good impression to the parents, most of which wouldn’t understand anything anyways. In one of our practice drills leading up to the demonstration, the guy in the squad with the Negev (recall: ~18 pound Israeli made machine gun) got a bullet shell in his eye, and had to be taken out. It was very minor, but they took him to get checked out anyways because they didn’t want to take any chances. So we were stuck without a negevist. Luckily for them, I also did the training for the Negev and quickly suggested that I could take over, seeing a great opportunity to let loose with a few hundred rounds, all fired on automatic of course. The drill was very short, maybe taking a total of only 3 minutes, and in those 3 minutes, taking the commander’s instructions to use as much ammo as need to heart, I ended up shooting over 400 bullets. The funny thing was that at one point, as I was shooting and running at the same time, I just couldn’t advance up the hill. The gun was so powerful that I just couldn’t progress up the hill while I was firing on automatic. I had to let out a short burst, run a little, and then another, all the way up. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun participating in the demonstration.

I am now sitting here only a couple days away from my masa kumpta (beret march), in a bit of disbelief at how the past 8 months in the army have gone by so quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to write about last week, the most important week of my training so far, Shavua Milchama (war week), so it will have to wait until my next update, at which point I will have also finished my 80 km hike and received my RED BERET!

Shin splints, Paratrooping course, Shavuz, and Regila

As many of you already know, the past couple weeks I had a minor case of shin splints. The army’s solution to this very common problem, which apparently happens to every combat soldier at some point during their service, is simply an exemption from strenuous physical activity called ‘Betim’. It essentially means that every time you have to do guard duty, you can sit. Every time you get 10 seconds to run here, 10 seconds to run there, you simply walk and are allowed to get there late. It does not allow you to do anything. It makes you feel like you’re a cripple not capable of anything that everyone around you is capable of doing. There have been many instances of people around me getting Betim for all sorts of reasons, and I've always seen them lagging behind the group. It never occurred to me that I would need Betim, to which people many times attach a stigma of laziness and evading the ‘hard work’ everyone else is doing, which is a terrible feeling. As happy as you are that you have time for your medical problem to heal, you really wish that you felt better and not left out of everything that all your fellow soldiers are doing. At least have a problem bad enough to deserve Gimmelim, which is a break at home for medical reasons, instead of being stuck on base. As much fun as it is to complain about how difficult things are, or how you really wish you didn’t have to go for that run, or for that 15 km masa, when it actually happens and you can’t go, and you see your friends come back from doing it, you really feel that you missed out on something.

On that note, 3 weeks ago, we left our home base to go to the Tel Nof Air Force base, where we would be doing our 2 week paratrooping course. Everyone had to go through a medical check before arriving to ensure that they are capable of participating because, as I’m sure you all know, parachuting out of an airplane is not the safest thing, and accidents often do happen. My Betim were scheduled to end a day before the course started, so naturally I was very excited that the timing worked out so well. After insisting several times on seeing the doctor to get the go ahead for the parachuting, I was simply informed by the medic that the doctor is busy, will take a look at my information, and update him. But of course, not to worry (famous last words) because it looks like I will be jumping. Two days later, after arriving on the parachuting base, they make an announcement: ‘anyone who was not approved by the doctor to participate in the course, please step to the side’. Seeing as how I had not heard any news, I assumed no news was good news so I remained in place. Of course you can see where this is going. A minute later my officer makes eye contact with me and signals to me with a movement of the eyes to go to the side that I am not participating. As you can imagine, it was very upsetting not being able to participate, and even more so, being misled by them and not being told what’s happening until the last possible second. Gotta love the army!

So basically, for the vast majority of these 2 weeks, while all my friends were learning all this cool stuff about parachuting, and practicing the jumping and rolling techniques, and of course jumping from a plane 5 times, I was secluded into a smaller group of 4-5 other people with Betim who would go to the kitchen from 5 AM until close, at around 9 PM, with a 2 hour break over lunch time. Being in the kitchen is one of the worst things you can do in the army (in my opinion), hence it usually is given as a punishment. However, for us lucky soldiers there was simply nothing else for us to be doing on base for 2 weeks, so we had the honour of working there. Working in the kitchen on base entails washing the same huge pots each a couple times a day, tons of squeegeeing the floors, making lots of schnitzels, and the occasional helping out with baking pastries or bread. Having to be stuck in the kitchen for so long really makes you second guess the reasons why you’re here and makes you think about the good life with family and friends you left back home. All these feelings can be summarized into one, very well known slang word in the army: SHAVUZ.

In Hebrew, shavuz is short for Shavur Zayin, literally broken penis. Like shin splints, it is almost guaranteed to happen to every soldier at least once throughout their army career, at which point they simply are sick of everything and just really want to do anything possible to get out of the army. I guess the most accurate translation for the word would be depressed. I recently found an excellent way to describe the feeling, written by another lone soldier on his blog:

“Like elderly men before Viagra, shavuz soldiers cannot rally any excitement to perform their tasks.”

Of course, there are several solutions to this problem. The obvious, but more challenging one is simply to remember all the reasons you came here in the first place and work yourself out of the funk. Evidently, this is much more easily said than done. Another, more temporary way out is to somehow legitimately get off base for a day or two, which can be done by getting gimmelim, or by getting some sort of referral to a doctor off base (specialist). I happened to employ both of these solutions. On the Thursday of my first week on base, after pestering the commanders quite a bit, I landed an appointment with the army optometrist. This was actually very legitimate, as I had been running after them for months to get to see him, all so he can sign a form enabling me to buy a pair of glasses at the army’s expense. As it turns out, the same day, a friend of mine from the garin was having a tekes (ceremony) marking the completion of his 3 month medic course. I of course really wanted to be there, and seeing as how it was on the same base as my appointment, and the appointment itself would only take a matter of minutes, I asked to stay for it. My mefaked, knowing that my appointment was at noon, and the tekes was at 4 PM, was a bit skeptical at first, so it took a bit of persuading. After asking him for permission to stay a bit longer so that I can attend the tekes, and seeing him think it over in his head, I decided to help him out. So I say to him ‘what happens if I just miss the bus back to base after my appointment. Also, I don’t exactly know how to get there and back, for all I know I could end up taking the wrong bus and arrive at a completely different place.’ Taking the hint, he looks at me, smiles, and says ‘you do what you have to do, as long as you’re back on base by the end of the day’.

I was thrilled, both to be able to attend my friend’s ceremony, and get off base and away from the kitchen for a day. I took full advantage of the day, visiting 3 other friends who also are on that base before the ceremony itself, and then even taking a quick detour to stop by at my family’s in Givatayim after the tekes. The buses worked as late as 11 PM, so I was planning on staying as late as I could before going back to base. Finally, around 9 PM, I get a call from my commander, saying ‘Oren, where are you?’ I reply “I am visiting my family in Givatayim”. He goes: "What the hell are you doing there? Don’t you think you got carried away with yourself? When were you planning on getting back to base?” So I go “I don’t know, I didn’t really think about when I would get back, the buses work until around 11 PM, so maybe 10, 10:30. You told me I have until the end of the day.” He just replies: “leave right now and call me when you get here”. So I left around half an hour later, and having my family drive me to base, I got there just past 10 PM. As I arrive to base, I give him a call. He picks up his phone, sounding as if I woke him up, and goes “You got here? Good. Go to sleep, and be ready tomorrow morning at 4 AM to leave base for home.” Like I said, gotta love the army!

After a great weekend, and a bit of brainstorming as to good ideas of how to get gimmelim so that I wouldn’t have to go back to the kitchen, I decided to use the old ‘vomiting and diarhea excuse’ which always works because there really is no way of verifying it, and not only could you spread it to others on base, but you could also yourself get dehydrated. I never thought I would be one of those people that have to pretend they’re sick to get out of the army, but drastic times call for drastic measures. The things we were doing in the kitchen were unbearable. (The fact that everyone else was on an adrenaline rush the entire week because of jumping out of an airplane everyday didn’t help the matter either.) Later on in the week, I had to scrub all the chairs in the kitchen with bleach, and also scrub the bird poop off the walls (for some reason, there are a large number of birds stuck in the חדר אוכל with us, and they manage to make quite a mess). I guess it is there way of cleaning and preparing for Passover, and all I can say on the subject is THANK GOD that I am not in the kitchen for the week right before Passover.

Finally towards the end of the second week of the course, I was able to convince them to let me go help out at the place where they actually parachute. They were already doing the last jump out of 5, but I was very excited to finally see some action. It was a night jump, so they would be jumping in the evening after dark, which meant that we would have to get there around 3 PM and stay until the last person completes his jump and then clean up the site, which ended up being about 1 AM. Even in the dark, it was a beautiful site seeing hundreds of people parachuting to the ground from right above you, and knowing that I will also be doing it in a couple months time made me very excited.

After finishing the jump course, we came back to our home base to close one more weekend, before we have a week vacation (called regila) until the following Monday. Nobody really knew the reason why we had to close, and most thought there was no reason, until we heard rumours that we would have a masa. Sure enough, Saturday night just after Shabbat finished, we set out for our masa samal. Before going out for it, I had to see the doctor in order to get permission because I never officially got the go ahead to continue with physical activity since my shin splints, even though the Betim period was over 2 weeks earlier. After a few simple questions from the doctor, he said that I could do the march, but that I would not be able to carry any extra weight (the stretcher or 9 L water pack). However, a question I was not prepared for was him asking me if I did the parachuting course. I answered no. And then he says to me “why not, your Betim ended two weeks ago, just before the jumping, why didn’t you see the doctor earlier?” All I could answer was “my commander never really let me see the doctor and the medic was supposed to take care of it; I was only told that I’m not doing the course after we got to the jump base and it was too late then.” The closest thing I got to an apology or sympathy was a weird face made by the doctor. Obviously it was very upsetting to hear it, after seeing everyone so excited about their jumps and seeing everyone walking around so proudly with their wings on their uniforms, but I didn’t have time to process it then because it was just minutes before the masa. The masa ended up being 18+3 km (the last 3 with stretchers open with around 70 kg of sand on each). Overall it wasn’t so bad, and at this point, I feel like doing a masa is just part of the army routine, and frankly, 20 km, 40 km, and 80 km are all the same, it’s just a matter of time before it’s over. This one happened to take around 4 hours (with a 10-15 minute break every hour). In true army style, the masa didn’t end up being a simple 21 km. After getting back to base, we immediately proceeded to the 400 meter obstacle course (including 3 meter rope climb, 2 meter wall, monkey bars, crawling, etc). And then it was over!

Ironically, the masa was exactly what I needed to get me out of the funk that has weighed down on me the past couple weeks. Either that, or it was the anticipation of a week off from the army, eating good food, watching tv, and seeing all my friends, some of whom I go without seeing for months at a time because of non-overlapping weekends off from the army. Right now, I am sitting here at the end of the shortest week of vacation I have ever had. Although I would’ve loved for it to be longer, I think that any longer and it would have made going back to the army at the end of it a serious issue.

Up ahead is advanced training for around 2-3 months, after which I am still hoping to be chosen for the early commanders’ course, which would last 4 months. Advanced training is more of the same of basic, except almost every week is spent in the field practicing more advanced manoeuvrings, and according to the schedule, I will be getting almost every weekend off, except for the first 3 weeks. Of course, recent events in the area, including 100 rockets and mortars being fired into Israel over the weekend do not bode well for the coming months, so things could change... but I can only hope for the best.